Nut



-J. A. WHEELER.A

Nur.

APPLlcAT o I 4,1921. I 1,421,638. Patented July 4,' 1922.

Bloomington, in the county of San JOHN A. WHEELER, OF BLOOMINGTON, CALIFORNIA, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-TENTH. TO

, EBER M. LASH, OF.RIALTO, CALIFORNIA.

NUT.

To a?? whom t may concern.' 'i

Be it known that I, JOHN A. WHEELER, a citizen of the United States, residin at ernardino and State of California., have invented certain new and usefull Improvements in Nuts, of which the following is a specification, reference being had to the accompanying drawings.

This-invention relates to lock nuts, that is nuts which, when placed upon a bolt or equivalent member, will become locked thereon -against accidental removal.

The general object of the invention is to provide a nut of such form that when it is applied to a rod or unthreaded bolt and forced into position against the work, it will be caused to tightly grip t-he bolt along the entire extent of the nut and lock thereon.

A further object is ,to provide a nut which is interiorl'y threaded but which is not required to operate upon a-threaded bolt or rod but may be applied to a plain bolt or rod and will bite thereinto when in place `so as to prevent the nut from being accidentally disengaged from the bolt, thus eliminating the necessity and expense of threading the stock for the bolts, permitting rods of all sorts to be used for the purpose and permitting the use of rods as bolt Shanks which would otherwise be scrapped, this construction further permitting the nut to bite into the rod or bolt anywhere along the length of the rod or bolt and being such that the greater the strain, the tighter the nut will hold.

And a further object is to provide a nut of this character which does not have t0- be applied with a wrench but which is applied by hammering in place and which therefore lmay be put in place and tightened against the work very quickly.

Still another object is to so form the nut that it may be either permanently engaged with the shank of a bolt or rod so that it cannot be removed therefrom, or which by a slightly different construction will permit the nut to be removed from the rod by means of a wrench.

A further object is to provide a nut with a peculiar form of thread, as it may' be Specification of Letters Patent.

vieaamtea.v July a, i922. 1921. Serial N0. 469,487.

Another object is to form a nut of a cup or concave-convex shape having interior ratchet teeth which nut, when flattened against the work by the blows of a hammer, will act to force the teeth firmly into the shank of an unthreaded bolt-or rod, these teeth being so formed that the nut maybe forced further against the work or tightened up whenever desired but cannot be forced outward by the work.

And another object is to provide a nut which may be permanently applied to a. rod

or bolt to form a head therefor.

Other objects will appear in the course of the following description.

My invention is illustrated in the accom# panying drawings, wherein Figure 1. is a top plan View of one form of nut constructed in accordance With my invention;

' Figure 2 .is a side elevation thereof;

Figure 3 is a cross section of the nut shown in, igure l;

.Figure 4 is'a cross section of the nut shown in Figure 3 and the nut shown in Figure 7 in applied position;

Figure 5 is a plan view of the nut shown in Figure 3 after it is in place; v

Figure 6 is a plan view of a slightly modified form of nut; i

Figure 7"s a sectional view of this nut when applied; l

Figure 8 is a fragmentary sectional view cf' a modified form of nut such as is used on plow bolts;

. Referring to these drawings, it is to be 4 noted that I have illustrated in Figures 1 to 4 a nut which is removable from a shank. This nut may beof any shape in plan, square,

hexagonal, octagonal, etc., and may have any desired shape in side elevation. The nut l0 is formed of' any desired thickness and 1s annular in shape to provide a central aperture ll. From this central aperture extend aI plurality of radial slots 12', these slots in the nut which is not to be permanently applied to the bolt or shank being of approximately even widththroughout their length. The nut is concavo-convex in shape to provide a leaves the shop convex outer face 13 and a concave inner face 14, these faces havinga greater curvature before the nut is applied than afterthe nut is put in place, as will be later explained.

`As illustrated in Figure 3, the nut when it has its .central 'opening 11 tapering in form toward the concave side 14 y of the nut and this central aperture is screwthreaded, Athe teeth formed by the threads being like ratchetteeth, in other words having a series o f parallel faces 15 approximately concentric to the c'oncavo-convex yfaces of the nut and these parallel faces being conwhich extend joined by inclined faces 16 f the outward and toward the yconcave face o nut.

Now when a nut ofthe character illustrated in-Figure 3 is applied to the shank,

`rod or bolt, designated'17, and is more or less flattened,.the flattening operation which is performed byl hammering the nut wise exerting 4pressure upon its convex face causes the teeth formed by the screw-threads,v

to be' forced into and bite firmly upon the rod or shank 17, as illustrated in Figure 4. The slots 12 in-this flattening or hammering operation tendto close at the end adjacent the bolt, as illustrated in Figure, so that practically a continuous biting surface is' .thread is' such, that the nut cannot move outwardon thegrod or away from the work, particularly in view of the fact that the nut is still somewhat ooncavo-co'nvex and an thrust exerted by the work therefore ten s to. still further flatten the'nut and cause itv to bind still'more firmly upon the bolt or shank 17.

Ifit be desired to tighten the hut, the nut is st ill further` hammered 'I toward the work, which wil be permitted by the shape of the ratchet teeth, but if it be desired to remove the nut, thena wrench is applied to the .nut land the miti-is turned in the usual manne and as it is `turned it will act like a 4die' cutting screw-threads on the until 'the Vnut has run off the rod'or shank entirely.

. Wherethe nutis to be applied permanently tothe `rod, as for instance where this nut is to form the head of a b olt, then the form of nut illustrated in Figure 6 is used, where the /f ,nut 10 is formed with a central a erture 11,

but the slots 12a are not of uni orm width cause 'it' to move but the'slots are widerat the ends adjacent the bolt than they are at their outer ends. Under these circumstances, when the nut is driven upon the rod and flattened down, the slots 12*1 will not entirely close at their ends ,adjacent the nut, as is the case in the form of nut shown in Figure 1, but the slots are slightly open at the ends adjacent the nut and as af consequence the nut, when being driven upon the bolt, creates ridges on the bolt or shank and these ridges, extending into vthe mouths of the slots 12a, act to the nut to prevent its rotation on the shank so that the nut is held from any longitudinal movement on the bolt by the binding action of the teeth of the nutand is held from any rotation by the ridges on the bolt as 'a lock which are forced into the inner ends ofthe l slots 12a. This is shown in Figure 7.

It will be (bvious, therefore, that the form of nut 10n may be used to provide a head for a bolt or shank and to be permanently applied thereto, while the nut 10 is used as an ordinary nut coacting with this head lto clamp a piece of work between them, or it is obvious that two permanent nuts may be put upon a' rod to clamp the work between them,

these nuts being such that they cannot be removed, or obviously two removable nuts may be used po'n the rod.

It will be seen'that when the nut is driven down in place, it still has a slightly concavo- -convex shape and this slight cup shape given to the nut after it' is driven gives to the nut a. small amount of elasticity which is of value in two ways, first it allows the nut to secure a new or tighter hold, and second it holds the nut more irmly on a rod by forcing its teeth or threads more firmly into the rod where it has bitten into it. By making the threadsl ofthe nut very hard and tough,

much harder than anv rod upon which the nut is to be used, the threads will not strip as is the case with the common nut and bolt. 'Ihe strain on this nut comes on the outside' underedges, that is the outer margin of the concave face of the nut, instead of all over the faces of the nut. bite inwardly 'or into the center of the rod.

It will noted that my nut dispenses entirely with the necessity of lusing a threaded bolt,vrod or shank, and also dis- This causes-the nut to penses with the necessity of having a rod or shank formed with a head, 'as the 'permanent nut shown in vFigure '6 may be placed upon the rodi to form the head thereof.4 This allows the utilization of plain rod iron to form the bolt. Thus old scrap iron ordinarily thrown away may be utilized and saved and even strap iron maybe used to form bolts by simply rounding the ends of the strap iron. Furthermore, my invention entirely eliminates. the diiculty due to ydifference in thread gauges on as my improved nut requires no threadon bolts and nuts,

the bolt of any gauge at all or of any kind.

It will 'be vseen that the nuts illustrated may be readily made on a punching machine and that it requires no newtools to apply the nut. The nut may be made of relatively Athin steel and thus may be made stronger,

While at the same time using less metal than nuts now made. The nutv may-be tightened by hammering 'it intoeplace and may be removed by the use of a. wrench, butI if the nut is to be used again it must first be laid upon an anvil vover a hole of suitable size and upsidedown and by using a riveting hammer against the concave face, its cup shape may be increased to the degree it had initially.

Obviouslyl this invention may be applied to nuts of-various sizes and to bolts of various sizes. Thus, for instance, for small bolts it is only necessary to cut pieces from a roll of wire to any length desired and place one of the permanent nuts 10a on the wire for a head and use one of the removable nuts on the wire in the way an ordinary nut is used. This permits those who are not provided with stocks and dies to readily form a bolt for any purpose desired, and it is obvious that a bolt of this character is much stronger than can now be bought, owingA to the superior strengthof the wire overthe strength vof the metal used in ordinary small bolts.

The nut may be used over piping, as-vrell as over solid rods, and be clamped down in the usual manner. It is reiterated that if the threads on the nut are sufliciently hard and tough, they will not batter or strip but will always bite deeper into the rod or bolt as the strain becomes greater on the nut and its threads. y

In Figures 8 and 9 I show an application of my inventionl to a plow bolt. The nut 10b is of substantially the same character as before stated, except that it is circular' in form and frusto-conical and is formed with a central aperture 11b and it has the radial slots 12". their upper ends the outer surface of the nut so that the upper end is formed with what may be termed a plurality of more or lessres1lient tongues 18. Thus these tongues 18 may be contracted. The nut has ratchet threads of the same character as the ratchet threads heretofore described and, as illus- .vex under face which will engage'the nut.

The ratchet teeth being forced firmly into the Ishank 17 will grip this shank and thenut will be held firmly inposition. on the bolt. If it be desired to remove the nut, it

l may be vrotated by a wrench and will then cut screw-threads on the bolt, as previously These radial slots intersect at stated,but there is no necessity of applying a Wrench to put it in place, and after it has been put in place around the end of the shank 17, it may be contracted into lirm en.- gagement with the shank in the manner shown in Figure 9.

I claim Y 1. A nut concavo-convex in form, the central aperture of the nut being formed with a screw-thread, one of the faces of the thread throughout its length being approximately parallel to the outer face of the nut, the opposite face of the thread being outwardly inclined and toward the concave face of the nut. y

2. nut concavo-convex in form and having a central aperture, and radiating slots intersecting the aperture, thek nut having an internal screw-thread, said screw-thread having one face thereof throughout its length disposed at right angles tgo the axis of the nut and the opposite face throughout its length disposed at an inclination to the axis of the nut and toward the concave face of the nut.

3. A. nut "concavo-convex in form and having a central aperture, said aperture expanding outward from the concave face of the nut, and the aperture having inwardly projecting teeth. 4. nut concaVo-convex in form and having a central aperture, said aperture expanding outward from the concave face of the nut, the wall of the aperture being interiorlyscreW-threaded, the screw-thread having one face at right angles to the axis of the nut and the opposite face inclined relative to the axis outward and toward the concave face of the nut whereby when said nut -is put in position upon a bolt and flattened,

ward the concave face of the nut.

6. A nut of the character described concavo-convex in form and having a central aperture, and a plurality of slots ,radiating from the aperture, said slots being wider at the end nearest the aperture than at their .outer ends, the wall of the aperture being screw-threaded and the aperture being tapering toward the concave face of the nut, the screw-thread of the aperture having its outer face at right angles to the axis of the nut and its inner face inclined to the axis of the nut and toward the concave face of the nut. 7. The combination `with an unthreaded the outer face of the' thread being approximately at right angles to the axis of the nut,

the inner face of the thread being inclined outward and toward'the concave face of the nut.

9. A nut having a bore formedV with ratchet teeth, the teeth having faces approximately atl right angles to the a-Xis of the nut and faces inclined outward toward one end of the nut, the nut being radially slotted at a plurality of points and'being so formed that the portions between said4 slots may be forcedinwardto grip the bolt.

In ltestimony whereof -I hereunto affix my signature.

JOHN' A; WHEELER. 

